A checklist on vocal health for singers and professional voice users
If you are a singer or if you use your voice for other activities a lot (teachers, actors, customer support, etc), you need to know how to take care of it and maintain good vocal health for singers.
How well you take care of your voice can be the difference between singing/speaking freely with ease, and coming back home with a sore throat.
If you are a singer, vocal health should be at the top of your priority list when it comes to singing habits.
It doesn’t matter how much you practice your technique exercises and your songs, if you don’t take care of your vocal cords your voice will be damaged and anything you want to do with it will become more difficult.
If you often feel that your voice is breathy, weak, or that you have to make an effort to sound, you might want to take a look at your vocal habits. Sometimes the problem is there and not in the amount of practice that you are doing.
Vocal Health for singers – the beginner checklist
There is lots and lots of material out there on how to have optimal vocal health, but today we are going to start with the absolute basics that you want to get right in order to have a good vocal health for singers.
Are you getting enough sleep?
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If you are tired, your voice will be too. Singing is about using the body efficiently, and if you are tired you are likely to be overusing some muscles that you shouldn’t to help you sing.
Also sleeping enough is important to help you process all the information that you get about how to use voice technique.
When you are tired you are also more likely to use stimulants with caffeine such as coffee, which dehydrates you and will make your voice hoarse.
Are you hydrated enough?
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For singers, teachers, and any professional voice user, being well hydrated is crucial. You need to keep the membranes in your vocal cords hydrated at all times when you are using your voice. Even slight dehydration can cause damage to your voice. If you are dehydrated, it is harder for your vocal cords to produce sound and your body will work in a nonefficient way, causing more damage, which in turn will cause your body to work even harder – it is a circle that you don’t want to start!
When you take water, your body has to process it in order for your vocal cords to get hydrated. This process takes around 20 minutes. So it is not enough to drink water right before you sing. You need to keep yourself hydrated at all times.
8 glasses of water a day is what is recommended but of course, we are all different so it varies.
It also varies in regards to how active you are, your size, etc.
Do you take care of your immediate environment?
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There are different factors that can affect your voice directly:
- Humidity: try to keep a balance in the humidity of your house – if it is too dry or too humid this will affect your voice.
- Air conditioning – try to avoid this as much as you can!
- Ventilation – Try to keep your rooms ventilated. Let fresh air in!
- Temperature – avoid too cold or overheated environments.
Are your foods and drinks damaging your voice?
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There are some foods and drinks that you really want to avoid if you want to have a healthy voice.
- Alcohol – Awful for your voice. It dehydrates the body and your vocal cords are going to suffer because of that. If you like to have your alcohol, the general rule is one extra glass of water for every glass of alcohol. It is better to avoid or reduce consumption of it.
- Caffeine – Also dehydrates the body. The worst-case scenario is when people drink their coffee as a replacement for water. Terrible idea! If you can, limit and reduce your consumption of caffeinated drinks, and drink extra water for every caffeinated drink.
- Hot spicy foods – irritant for your voice
Are you a smoker?
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Quit.
Do you sleep straight after taking dinner?
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When discussing vocal health for singers, one of the most common issues is acidic reflux. To avoid acidic reflux, you have to make sure that you allow at least 3 hours between your last meal and your sleeping time.
Also, if you have to sing, try to avoid taking a big meal right before your singing session.
These are the absolute basics for voice health – there are many more things you can do, but this is a pretty good starting point 🙂
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